Auditor General Exposed

Weeks of forensic investigations carried out by THE INDEPENDENT's Special Investigative Squad (SIS) have led to startling revelations about the Auditor General, Mr. Edward Dua Agyeman.

The revelations, which border on all manner of developments and happenings in the Audit Service of the republic and various occurrences have led to only one conclusion, that Government has to sit up and check the operations at the Auditor General’s Department.

Our sources at the Auditor General’s Department, research as well as cross sectoral investigations have confirmed that the present Auditor General, Mr. Edward Dua Agyeman was sacked from the Audit Service in 1997 as Deputy Auditor General following an investigation of his activities by a Review Committee established by the then government of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) in the wake of various reports about non-existent financial malpractices he alleged were going on all over the country.

As a result of the fake audit reviews by Mr. Dua-Agyeman, several staff of the Audit Service were interdicted but when the then Government’s Audit Review Committee finished its work, it was realised that the said report was baseless.

This resulted in the reinstatement of the Audit Service staff who were interdicted based on then Deputy Auditor General Dua Agyeman’s reports.

Some of the interdicted Audit Service staff who were reinstated as a result, according to the SIS’s findings are Messrs. J.E. Lamptey, B.A. Darko, S.B. Bonney, J.S. Laryea, A.K. Mensah and K.A. Wiafe Gyebi.

One of the interdicted staff, who was with a former Controller and Accountant-General’s staff attached to the Ghana High Commission in the UK died before he could be re-instated.

The SIS found out that Auditor General Dua Agyeman was subsequently sacked from the Audit Service in January, 1989 and was suddenly found at the Non-Performing Assets Recovery Trust (NPART).

Here too, his appointment was terminated as a result of some malpractices (the subject of a coming report in this paper) with NPART publishing a public notice in the Daily Graphic in September, 1994 alongside his picture in which the public was informed that he is no longer an employee of the Trust, as result of which the public was advised to desist from transacting any business with the said Eward Dua Agyeman on behalf of NPART.

The SIS is also very close to details of how Dua Agyeman assisted a client of his (name withheld for now) in 1982 in the preparation of a balance sheet which was used by the client to under declare his (client’s) trading profits to the Internal Revenue Service.

An order to him to submit the trading accounts of clients he has prepared within 48 hours resulted in his relocation to Liberia from where he later returned to work as the Director of Education of the Institute of Chartered Accountants (Ghana).

The SIS found out that contrary to claims by Mr. Edward Dua Agyeman that he has saved the nation ?5 billion and an additional ?2.8 billion cedis by the detection of ghost names since he assumed office in April 21, 2001 are false.

In the June 2002 edition of the Daily Graphic No. 148556, the Acting Controller and Accountant General, Mr. John Prempeh was quoted by the paper in its report thus: “The Acting Auditor General, Mr. John Prempeh has requested the Auditor-General to cross check information on pay vouchers with the various Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) before they are submitted to the Accountant-General for deletion.

This, he said, has been necessitated by the fact that figures prepared as representing ghost names on official pay vouchers have turned out to be true and embarrassing. The Controller and Accountant General therefore requested the Auditor General to publicly restate the facts since the previous information fed the public had turned out to be inaccurate.”

The SIS is almost done with forensic investigations into the various forensic audits commissioned by the Auditor General since he assumed office and will be making details of some of them available soon.

The details stink to the heavens and will spiral a wave of questions on the propriety of the award of such fat contracts to private chartered accountancy firms, most of which have been questioned and challenged by some individuals and bodies as a drain on the tax payer.

In a telephone chat with Mr. Dua Agyeman yesterday, he confirmed that he has worked at NPART before but said he is not aware of any publication alongside his picture (see elsewhere on front page) in a Public Notice in the Daily Graphic in September 1994 informing the public about the termination of his appointment.

On whether he was sacked as Deputy Auditor General, Mr. Dua Agyeman again denied and said “ I know where all these are coming from.

They themselves called me back and gave me an appointment. I have all the records of these things and I will want you to come and show me your records so we can compare The Independent is keeping very valuable documents on developments at the Auditor General’s Department since Mr. Edward Dua Agyeman took that office and will be starting a crusade to get the right questions to be raised for the right answers.